Kick Your Health up a Notch

It goes without saying that being sick or feeling unwell affects your day-to-day life. And dealing with heart disease, diabetes, and other lifestyle-related illnesses can make life a lot harder and less enjoyable.

Before you even get to that point you can make changes to your diet in order to be healthier and hopefully prevent such diseases.

Following my accident, I was determined to live my best life, and that included being healthy and treating my body right. I am much healthier and happier than I ever was before.

Here are the changes I made to my diet:

Add in the fruits and veggies

I made it my goal that half my plate for each meal was made up of vegetables. This is much easier than working out macros, or measuring out portions etc. if you just starting out making healthy changes. Just fill half your plate with veggies and you’re sorted.

To the rest of the plate, I included a clean protein, whole starches (wholegrain rice, potato) and a healthy fat source.

Drink more water

Another simple trade-off that has big benefits on your health is to swap out most of your daily beverages (coffee, soda, sports drinks, juices etc). Many people claim not to like the taste of water – you can add some flavour by adding lemon slices, cucumber slices, or chopped up strawberries.

Swapping out sugary beverages for water not only reduces your sugar and calorie intake but also will improve your digestion.

Check your portion sizes

Portion sizes have got bigger and bigger over the last few generations, and we are eating more than ever. Especially when it comes to take-out. Here are some tips to help keep your portion sizes down (they worked well for me).

Use a smaller plate.

Buy single-serving portions, or take one portion out the bag onto a plate and pack the bag away.

Eat slower – you will start to experience the feeling of fullness much sooner – before you even think about seconds!